DEEP DIVE: Your Tween, Explained

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood

Kids & Family, Comedy, Parenting

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When our kids reach a certain age—as young as eight, some experts say, and definitely well before thirteen— they suddenly don't think their parents are as great as they once did. Congratulations, you're officially the parent of a tween! This week we're talking about what tweens are going through emotionally and psychologically... and how we can give them room to grow while still seizing opportunities to connect with them as (big) children. Margaret and Amy discuss: The cognitive shifts that happens in tweens' brains Why the ways we relate to our tweens has to change along with them Why "not taking it personally" is, and isn't, the right advice We may feel the urge to defend our actions or intentions to our tweens when they spar with us, but we don't actually have to get down "in the mud" with our kids whenever they push our buttons. Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode: Michelle Anthony for Scholastic Parents: ⁠Cognitive Development in 11-13 Year Olds⁠ John Mersch, MD for Medicine Net: Tween: ⁠Child Development (9-11 Years Old)⁠ ⁠Here’s our interview with Katie Hurley⁠, author of ⁠No More Mean Girls: The Secret to Raising Strong, Confident, and Compassionate Girls.⁠ ⁠Our "Fresh Take" interview with Dr. Becky Kennedy on being "Good Inside"⁠ We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: ⁠https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/ mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, teens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm not trying to make things harder for you.
0:04.6	What fresh hell.
0:06.4	Laughing in the face of motherhood.
0:08.9	Oh my God.
0:10.0	Mom doesn't know everything.
0:12.2	With Margaret Abels and Amy Wilson.
0:15.2	Not a huge fan so far.
0:17.7	A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmas so you don't have to.
0:22.5	You can't take it personally, but they're saying like, Mom, you're such an idiot.
0:31.3	Hello, everyone, and welcome to What Fresh Hell Laughing in the Face of Motherhood.
0:35.5	This is Margaret.
0:36.5	And this is Amy.
0:37.3	And today we're talking
0:38.4	about tweens. Twins. Twins. How they are. Yes. Because, I mean, it's the definition is they're
0:46.8	literally tween. They're between childhood and adulthood. They're between, you know,
0:52.7	11 and 13, I guess. That's what the tween comes from.
0:56.8	They're betwixt in between. Yes. And it's actually changed. I looked this up.
1:01.2	Tweens didn't come. Like, it was in the Oxford dictionary as like a sort of abbreviation for
1:05.9	between, but used as a way to describe a group of people kind of came into being in the 80s, mostly as a... I would have said later. It was, I found an article from the 90s, which is so funny. I'll put the link in the show notes from Newsweek. Like, here's what a tween is. And it's like, what is a tween? It's like the people listening right now, it's like, do they like spice girls? Are they sassy? Do they like everything with sparkles on them? Then you may have a tween.
1:30.1	Also, I'm realizing that in the age before the internet, we didn't need five billion think pieces. There was no market for like 12 signs. You've got a tween in the household.
1:42.5	Like we didn't need quite as much, like,
1:45.3	cute terminology content as we now do to feed the internet machine constantly with, like,
	...

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